Designing library web sites
Interesting article on the process of designing a library web site in the July 2008 issue of CRL, by Jennifer Duncan and Wendy Holliday, titled, "The Role of Information Architecture in Designing a Third-Generation Library Web Site." Among the tidbits:
- Multiple types of usability testing are best (card sorts, rapid paper prototype testing, etc) as are ongoing usability testing
- Your site should be user-centered, not librarian- or web-designer-centered
- Have multiple paths to the same info on your site; there shouldn't be just 'one way' to get to a item
- Collecting data about how users actually use your web site helps deflect any internal conflict among Web committee members who may disagree about the best design
- The authors state their work on the Information Architecture Task Force took 6 months, but the actual design of site took 2 years
Labels: web design
NIH mandate working
Library Journal reports that the compliance rates for submission of papers based on publicly-funded research to the National Library of Medicine's
PubMed Central has dramatically increased since the National Institutes of Health passed its mandatory public access policy last year. Previously, NIH had a voluntary policy, and compliance rates were extremely low, approximately 4%. Since the mandatory policy was instituted, compliance rates have more than tripled. Conservative estimates place compliance rates in 55-60% range.
Following is more info on the policy taken from the
SPARC/ARL white paper entitled, COMPLYING WITH THE NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH (“NIH”) PUBLIC ACCESS POLICY: COPYRIGHT CONSIDERATIONS AND OPTIONS:
On January 11, 2008, the National Institutes of Health (“NIH”) adopted a revised Public Access Policy for peer-reviewed journal articles reporting research supported in whole or in part by NIH funds. Under the revised policy, the grantee shall ensure that a copy of the author’s final manuscript, including any revisions made during the peer review process, be electronically submitted to the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central (“PMC”) archive and that the person submitting the manuscript will designate a time not later than 12 months after publication at which NIH may make the full text of the manuscript publicly accessible in PMC.
Evidently coercion does work.
Labels: medical literature
